Hyman Kaplan - Hyman Kaplan

Hyman Kaplan

Mr Kaplan is an immigrant and a pupil at a New York night class in English. He is extremely diligent and enthusiastic, but seems completely incapable of learning: the teacher, Mr Parkhill, is eventually driven to conclude that, although Mr Kaplan admits that English has rules - "good rules, sensible rules" - he is quite unable to admit that the rules apply to him. (In The Return of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N, Kaplan's English pronunciation has improved substantially between semesters.)

Mr Kaplan is extroverted and highly assertive, particularly when his moral sense has been outraged by some perceived injustice in class or in American history, and he frequently gets into noisy disagreements with other members of the class.

Mr Kaplan usually signs his name in colored crayon with green stars between red letters outlined in blue. In the last story of all, "Mr K*A*P*L*A*N the Eumoirous", he signs a note to his teacher simply "Hyman Kaplan", but addresses it to "Mr P*A*R*K*H*I*L*L". Mr Parkhill wonders if he will ever again be so honored.

Mr Kaplan was born in Kiev, has lived in America for fifteen years, and claims (on Columbus Day) that his birthday is October 12. From his pronunciation of English (the characters' various idioms are a major source of the stories' humor), it appears that Mr Kaplan's native language is Yiddish. This would seem to be confirmed when Kaplan calls flowers "bloomers", and a fellow student reminds him not to mix up two languages, leading the teacher to reflect that Mr Kaplan's native language refers to flowers as blumen.